Keynote Speaker: Dr. Christina Bieber Lake, Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English, Wheaton College, and author of Prophets of the Posthuman: American Literature, Biotechnology and the Ethics of Personhood(Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2013). Dr. Bieber Lake is also the author of the book The Incarnational Art of Flannery O’Connor and many articles which have appeared in Books & Culture and elsewhere.

The primary theme of the convention will be a celebration of the bicentennial of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Union University itself envisions a campus-wide, interdisciplinary commemoration for the calendar year, though the focus for this conference will be, as always, on the intersection of theology and fiction. Within the Frankenstein motif, possible topics and areas of interest include:

Join us for our 25th annual summer conference, as we explore anew our individual and common humanity in light of the ever-evolving developments in medicine, science, and technology. Plenary speakers will address being and remaining human in an age of science and technology, genetics, neuroscience & the BRAIN Initiative; bioethics in literature and pop culture; human rights & dignity; and theological examinations of contentment, human flourishing, particularity, and embodiment as they relate to bioethics.

Engage more personally in workshops and parallel sessions on a wide spectrum of perennial and emerging issues in contemporary bioethics relevant to professional practice, public policy, scholarship, the classroom, and making moral decisions in everyday life.

Conference workshops are sponsored by leading organizations such as Alliance Defending Freedom, American Association of Prolife OB|GYNS, Americans United for Life, Charlotte Lozier Institute, and Joni & Friends. These workshops include sessions on rights of conscience, disability, pain management & addiction, among others.

Conference rates are reduced in honor of CBHD’s 25th anniversary. Continuing Medical Education credit is pending and expected to be available.

The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity is a Christian bioethics research center at Trinity International University committed to anticipating, interpreting, and engaging the pressing bioethical issues of our day from a Judeo-Christian Hippocratic perspective.